Name: Meat "less" Lovers Pizza
Ingredients: Simple Seasoned Tomato Sauce; 1 cup commercial tomato sauce; 1 Tbs. Italian seasoning; Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste; Meat Topping; 1 12- to 14-inch pizza crust; 1 Tbs. olive oil; 4 oz. soy “ground beef”; 2 soy “sausage” links, sliced into 1/2-inch rounds; 1/4 cup chopped onion; 8 oz. shredded soy mozzarella; 12 slices soy “pepperoni”; 6 slices soy “Canadian bacon”

Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,923 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + beeftop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,448 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Soy “ground beef”: Provides the savory, meaty bulk of the topping in place of animal meat.
Soy mozzarella: Melts and stretches over the pizza, giving the topping its gooey, binding layer.
Commercial tomato sauce: Forms the moist, acidic base that carries the seasonings across the crust.
Onion: Softens and sweetens as it cooks, adding aroma and depth to the sauce.
Pizza crust: Supplies the base structure that holds the sauce and toppings while baking.

The step that matters

Prebaking the crust. Crust that is not partly baked before topping stays doughy and wet underneath, because the sauce and toppings add moisture that the dough cannot set quickly enough to absorb.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tomato, sauce, pepper, meat, olive, beef):

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits about as well
Carrotfits about as well
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, sauce, pepper, meat, olive, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Beef	100g cooked	250
Pork	100g cooked	242
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Mozzarella Cheese	1 oz (28g)	85
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Bacon	1 slice cooked (8g)	43
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Meat	not in our table	0
Topping	not in our table	0
Pizza	not in our table	0

Meat "less" Lovers Pizza